thought about the big picture i'm tom arbonne coming up in this half hour biotech companies say they need patents on human genes to stay roughly double can you really own the human body a new case before the supreme court may shatter thirty years of intellectual property law and save millions of lives in the process also in two thousand and eight wall street crash the economy and ruin the lives of people all over the world five years later the big banks are booming while the rest of us are struggling to recover from the worst downturn since the great depression isn't it time they made us back a small tax on financial transactions would be a start and right wing attacks on big government aren't just wrong they're dangerous i'll tell you why incised we take.

the best of the rest of the news on monday the supreme court heard arguments in the case of the association of molecular elect killer papyrology versus myriad genetics incorporated the central question in that case revolved around whether or not marriage and medics american biotech firm has the right to hold a patent to human gene sequences it can be used to predict whether or not an individual is at risk for breast cancer or myriad argues that its patent is necessary to ensure that it is properly rewarded for the millions of dollars it spent on research and development its and its opponents believe that it is impossible to own something as natural as the human genome whichever way the supreme court rules the decision will have broader ramifications for both the future of the american biotech industry and intellectual property law as a whole for the millions of americans at risk for breast cancer court's decision will have a very human impact as well if the justice is invalid. our adamant patients

could have easier access to potentially lifesaving tests for more on this i'm now joined by dr elaine chapter physician patient advocate and part time professor at weill cornell medical college. dr schaffner welcome to the program could you thank you for having me thank you for joining us could you give us a brief summary of the case the overview. sure. basically the genes that are at issue were discovered by scientists in the early one nine hundred ninety s. and they were discovered among others by researchers at the university of utah and they were those scientists were working with myriad biotech firm and basically the university and myriad came to own the patent on the sequences of those genes and those genes which are called braca one and record two. for breast cancer susceptibility conferring. their properties.

turned out to be very important in establishing women's risk for developing breast or ovarian cancer in a number of women's groups and then they say oh you and a group of pathologists have sued myriad genetics for ownership were they but were about their ownership of the gene in the in the pleadings before the supreme court the court seemed to seem inclined to reject patents for d.n.a. itself but might allow them for sea d.n.a. was sort of history in d.n.a. and c.d.n. a what's what's the deal here yeah well that's a great question and first i should say i was so impressed by some of the questions that justice sotomayor asked about the class case c.d.n. a is a complementary d.n.a. and it's routinely generated in a less. pretty much anyone who knows molecular biology could do it with standard

reagents and standard equipment in a lab and essentially if you isolate d.n.a. from a person you can. generate the complementary strand of a gene that you of interest and what myriad did years ago almost twenty years ago was they found the two sequences on chromosome seventeen and thirteen that were relevant to these two genes and they generated the c. d.n.a. using standard techniques and then they developed probes and other tests by which they could see if a woman in a particular woman has the mutation has a mutation in either of those genes or not the problem is that. the. the probes that they developed initially. tested only for certain mutations and not all of them and that pointed to the problem of a company having a patent on c.d.m.a.

that it basically precludes other investigators whether they're you know working at universities or individuals or companies who might want to look for other mutations are other ways to analyze the same gene segments is the c.d.n. a is formed if you like the way the admin and it's been a lot of years i mean timing guanine cytosine you know these two these these two these we know as always exist as pairs is that like you have half the set. is. basically a quote of the d.n.a. of the c.d.n. is that. it's. it's very similar and almost identical and the point that justice sotomayor made was that it's in coded by the natural d.n.a. what humans do is they just basically use a process that has been patented years ago and that's very standard to generate a sequence that dictated by the natural d.n.a.

so this is scientists don't you know don't do anything innovative they basically just read out. a code for the gene the code is a natural code and they do not insert any changes or. other than to basically snip out a part of a natural gene and but the c.d.'s because it's generated. in the lab it's not naturally occurring and therefore they're claiming that that's. that can therefore be patented do understand that part. yes that's part of the argument but i don't think it flew with the supreme court justices or at least not with most of the arguments that i read. the. it was interesting justice sotomayor she suggested she used an analogy with baking you have salt that's natural in butter that's natural in other ingredients so you can make cookies and you can

patent your way of making cookies but the ingredients that go in cannot be patented and chief justice roberts he talked about a baseball bat and how you could you know basically construct a baseball bat from a tree but the tree itself and the parts of it are not patentable and those are question is analogies. and i thought they were great analogies it was also interesting how they chose such so you know traditionally gender biased but so. the question raised was let's say you had a plant in the amazon and it turned out that a leaf of a plant was very valuable for medicine and maybe even for treating breast cancer so let's say someone goes through the whole amazon jungle and searches and finds this particular leaf if you just eat that leaf and it leaves cancer or treats cancer would that be a patent a belief in the answer was no but perhaps if you were to concentrate the leaf or

somehow extract a compound from the leaf and then process that that would be a valuable source the story tax. yes i mean the uterus as i understand it i mean yes yeah see go ahead see d.n.a. is simply a code that's comes from nature and it's just a laboratory form of the same so we have we have just just a minute left as a as a breast cancer yourself survivor yourself what would you like the court to understand. well i think the important thing is that you know there are all kinds of molecules in humans and that these are naturally occurring you know cellular components that offer insight. ways of treating and diagnosing conditions and i think it's important that. all researchers and companies have access to those molecules and to the structures of those molecules such that they can work on them

and invent other ways of using those molecules for treatment or for diagnosis i think that's the key you know if someone develops a new molecule you know to to bind let's say the gene or the protein that isn't coded by the gene that's there is to patent by lot but the molecule is there let's hope the court rules rules in the appropriate way dr wayne chater thanks so much for being with us. thank you. it's the good the bad of the very very. good liz coast zero. boston marathon bombings left thousands of runners stuck in the massachusetts capital people from all over the city rushed to provide support

housing for stranded athletes although lives cozier as a california native was no where near boston at the time she still felt a strong obligation to join in on the volunteer efforts working with fellow users of the read on the of the on line aggregating site read it cozier was contacted anytime a game was mass and help them coordinate the delivery of hundreds of pizzas for those shelters apartments and houses who are opposed to marathon runners on days like monday it's easy to get pessimistic about human nature. the people like liz cozy arrows are just a reminder that more often than not disaster brings out the best in us the bad greg abbott abbott the attorney general of texas has some interesting views regarding his state's geo political security he told this to a recent meeting of the mclennan county chapter of the republican party on their requires ongoing vigilance is the reality of the state of texas is coming under a new assault but also far more dangerous than what the leader of north korea

threatened when he said he was going to add austin texas as one of the recipients of those nuclear weapons. that we're getting is the threat from the obama administration and his political machine. you heard about the democratic party not the authoritarian state threatening to reign nuclear warheads on major texas cities that have a crowded party is the biggest threat to the lone star state these days that's like compelling and the very very ugly bob davis during a recent broadcast of his radio program the davis' never show even a sort of talk show host let loose on the issue of gun control as expected david strict strongly criticized president obama and senate democrats for supporting new firearm regulations but he saved his most passionate attacks weirdly for the parents of newtown victims telling them to go to hell seriously no joke with take a listen. i have something i want to say to the victims of newtown or any other shooting i don't care if it's here in minneapolis or anyplace else just because a bad thing happened to you doesn't mean that you get to put

a king in charge of my life i'm sorry that you suffered a tragedy but you know what deal with it and don't force me to lose my liberty which is a greater tragedy than your loss i'm sick and tired of seeing these victims trotted out given rides on air force one hauled into the senate well and everyone is just a freak they're terrified he's going to use i would stand in front of them and tell them they're being you go to hell it's inexcusable and just very very. after the break a new mall movement just slapped wall street bank stores with a tax of their i speed transactions is gaining steam along activists and most importantly in the u.s. house of representatives on saturday a coalition of groups will march on the white house and the treasury to demand the passage of the so-called robin hood tax we'll speak with one of the organizers of saturday's rally in just a moment. let

me let me i want to know why don't you let me ask you a question. here on this network is what we're having a debate we have our knives out. to do this right it's about staying there figuring this story will be and i don't want to talk about the mail and me. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

talking about the same story doesn't make it news. no puff pieces i mean tough questions right here. oh the worst you're going to think. why don't you put the. radio in for a minute. that i want. to do because you've never seen anything like the old.

bag with a wealth of national indorsements from climate activists small business owners the inclusive prosperity tax a financial transaction tax sponsored by congressman keith ellison of minnesota will be reintroduced next week on capitol hill also called a robin hood tax the act would create a sales tax on wall street which would provide hundreds of billions of dollars in new revenue for a nation every year prior to the bill's redirection on capitol hill more than one hundred forty organizations will take part in a robin hood tax campaign rally and march this saturday in our nation's capital joining me now to talk more about that rally and financial transaction tax is gene ross an acute care nurse and co president of national nurses united jean great to have you back with us thank you for being here glad to be here so tell us about the inclusive prosperity act what is this well it's a very very small financial transaction tax on buying and selling. the

constant churning those taxes that are on those trades that are done over the computer on wall street and it's meant to bring in up to three hundred fifty billion dollars per year and yet out of money so how he says are very very small tax how small is that point five percent point half of one percent and yes we've had a similar attacks over the years years ago i think it stopped. in one nine hundred sixty six it was called the tobin tax and it did the same thing and it worked very very well so we do know that it can be. doubled by thirty five and i think we started for the eight hundred ninety eight by what's his name to fund the spanish-american war i don't know i think it's my recollection you're going to get sick so you would know that it's called the star texas transaction excise tax well i would like to bring up the fact that it doesn't work and we know it works because so often people are saying you know why would you do this first of all why would you care about this as a terrorist is what we care about it because we see what's going on nowadays with

our patients and their families and as the economy has worsened from what wall street actually did to this country we see that patients are having to choose between medication and food on the weekend to help heal them when they're in our clinics and hospitals but we need to dial that they can stay healthy get healthy and stay healthy and that's hard to do when you don't have a job you don't have a roof over your head i used to have no visible means of income so with this tax would put a lot of mount and a large amount of money where it would do the most good but it also would help curb that speculation that's really killing the economy right now there is we're seeing i mean there's all this financial news about the collapse of commodity prices right now big things in today's financial times about copper is falling gold is foreign oil is falling weed is falling and it's not because all of a sudden people stop buying them or needing them or eating wheat it's because there's been this huge bubble in the commodity speculation market and that's that's

part of the we get these bubbles as a consequence of this churn whether it's stock or whether it's stocks they represent commodities or trades and commodities. how much damage could be mitigated to our economy or how to what extent would would having this very very small tax is slowdown or or dampen this process of computer trading that. benefits nobody except a couple dozen billionaires on wall street. well is this a genuine big deal for the economy oh it's huge i mean when you look at the figure three hundred fifty billion dollars a year we realize other bills have been put forward that talk about bringing in that amount in a period of ten years but we need it now i mean when everyone else is talking about budget deficit we're talking about the real kinds of deficits that we see a deficit in jobs a deficit in real health care a deficit in our educational system those are the kinds of things that money would be used for what about the people who say. once you put the tax on the business

model the water becomes viable high for goods or computer trading goes away you'll make some money on the tax but it's not going to three hundred fifty billion bucks it's going to be maybe thirty it will never go away it's been very lucrative for them and it continues to be and if you look in europe if you look at other countries that have a financial center they have not gone away and they've had a version of it for some time now they just voted recently to to do the robin hood tax but they have some similar things like value added taxes and it hasn't hurt them in any and it didn't hurt our country years ago so i don't think you're ever going to completely stop that but what the speculation that we've seen in the last several years that's really really hurt our country that does need to be curbed or it's driving up the price of food for you know particularly for elderly people for people and people it's fair game some people need to litter i've been up the price of gasoline everything else it's remarkable the inclusive prosperity act and saturday very quickly what's going to happen where should people be we will be out

in front of city i believe we're going to be doing a march you can find out at robin hood tax or national nurses united or we'll have lots of friends from around the country helping us because the money will be used for just the things we talked about we could actually. person joining us from health gap and she said if just a small portion of that three hundred fifty billion could wipe out aids is exactly gene thanks so much for being with us good luck keep up the great work. always suspect doors suspects may or may not have been identified in connection

with the boston marathon bombings it may still take days or even weeks or like with that latter years to truly find out more about the exact motivation behind these attacks and about the person or persons behind but it's not too soon to consider why terrorists foreign and domestic take the actions that they do foreign terrorists like the members of al qaida who attacked us on nine eleven and domestic terrorists who attack america often have specific grievances against our nation in the case of al qaeda they attacked us on nine eleven largely because osama bin laden was offended that we still had u.s. troops on saudi soil left over from the first gulf war and he was horrified that we would westernized as a little corner of the muslim world meanwhile a domestic terrorist whether they be from the far right or the far left often have specific grievances about what the american government is or is not doing. from left wing windows smashing into us tactics to b.t.o.

meetings in occupy protests to right wing bombing attacks of oklahoma city in the one thousand nine hundred six olympics there's always some underlying grievance that the perpetrators have and i would say actually making that comparison is a pretty false comparison you have to go back twenty thirty years before you find left wingers who are actually killing people or blowing ending up so that property damage versus killing people in any case when it comes to right wing extremist attacks the grievance against america is almost always related to the memo of big government but where is the meme of big government causes all of society's ills really coming from when eric rudolph the one nine hundred ninety six olympic bomber was captured and shed some light on why he committed those horrific bombings rudolph said that he thought that the olympics by bringing together athletes from throughout the world on an equal basis promoted his words the despicable ideals of global socialism. now how many times

a day does some talking head in the right wing media and the blogosphere argue that america is turning into our socialist country how many times a day do they argue that regard murder as a cause of all our nation's problems government is a constant enemy of right wingers who are often funded by billionaires speaking about hillary clinton for example multimillionaire dick armey once said that hillary clinton bothers me a lot i realize the other day that are thought sod a lot like karl marx she hangs around a lot of marxists all her friends are marxists frank that never realized that he was reading marx but and then there is charles koch who is speaking back in october two thousand and twelve so that i think is scary with this administration is fundamentally dedicated to transforming this country that means bigger and bigger government more intrusive less productive less opportunity and so who does that hurt the most are the poorest people. well the poorest people hear that and sadly think maybe there's some truth to it and while billionaire backers of the right who

speak ill of the government are bad enough the mean the big government is the cause of all our problems is perpetuated each and every day in the right wing media whether you call it a government option whether you call it the consumer option whether you call it a co-op or an opt out or an opt in and these are all all just terms about their big government takeover of our health care system fear of the big bad government edging towards a record level in the u.s. everybody is up in arms this speech today was an ode to big government it was a him to be government this speech was a declaration in the era of big government is back i'm the man who will do it if we stagnated into an economy that has taken all that hope right down the slope. that is left millions without jobs forced out of their homes by for closure herded into dependency upon a government didn't promise this is candy but give this cavities billionaires

and big transnational corporations don't want big government because when the government stops funding the commons things like schools hospitals water power systems then the billionaires the big corporations can grab those natural monopolies and squeeze more more money out of working people like you and me while all the talk by billionaires in the right wing media about big government might be good for massive transnational corporations and the wealthy elite it's shaken the people's confidence in america and in the idea of lincoln's government of the people by the people and for the people don't forget the founders of our country fought and died so we could have the type of government that we do it fought and died for a government that looked out for all the people rich and poor. we used to believe in our form of government but now it's attacked daily by right wingers on the radio the web television even in congress and while they attack our form of government

they freak out when somebody mentions the decades of violence that have been dumped on us by people who hated or were afraid of the government anti-government talk when in the abstract becomes corrosive and it activates the crazies to come out of the woodwork and unleash beilenson our society when that anti-government talk is specific for example discussions about drones are spying or torture taxes that's actually a good thing that's an important dialogue to have we do that here that's democracy in a republic but when the united states is routinely attacked was slurs like big government so much so that it's hammered into our psyche. the government is evil we shouldn't be surprised to see right wing extremists turned violent we don't know exactly what happened yet boston or all the details are what we do know what happened in atlanta waco oklahoma city the unabomber when hundreds of others so well documented over the southern poverty law center our founders fought and died for this nation for

goodness sake george washington had three horses shot out from underneath underneath them or so the story goes during the war if we don't like something our government is doing let's have a serious dialogue about it let's discuss it let's vote on it but let's not demonize the united states of america itself government itself and let's not consistently paint our democratic republic as the source of all of our problems not only to such behavior accomplish virtually nothing but it brings the crazies out of the woodwork of all stripes and that's the way it is tonight wednesday april seventeenth two thousand and thirteen and don't forget the modesty begins with you get out there get active take your. wealthy british.

market why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's guns or a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to conjure reports . will. technology innovation all the developments around russia and the future of coverage. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. china operations are all day.

about international and world in the very heart of moscow. is there a major break in the case two days after explosions ripped through the boston marathon the f.b.i. .